Update: This post series have been published as an article 'Why I Spent 2 Weeks Outside My Comfort Zone' on TurnPoint educational start up website. You can check it out here.

Recently I've become increasingly unhappy with where my life was going. At first I couldn't get it, I just couldn't find the reason. When I looked at it - everything seemed fine. I have a good education, an interesting job, loving family, financial stability, good work-life balance. Yet my life seems pretty... well, ordinary.

I kept thinking about it and tried to analyse what it is that I am missing... Where have the butterflies gone? I realised I do not remember when was the last time I was looking forward to getting up in the morning.. Remember how when you were a child you never wanted to go to sleep, how you were waiting impatiently for the next day's arrival? And as soon as you woke up the next morning and opened your eyes - you jumped out of bed and rushed to meet it? How life was interesting and exciting? How you enjoyed every second? I don't remember it that much now.

I thought it was high time to look at myself from within. And admit how many internal issues and complexes I have, how all of them elaborately intertwine with my many fears and unaccomplished plans and prevent me from living to the fullest. Worst of all I got used to staying within my comfort zone so much, that doing something a little uncomfortable became a major issue. I often simply decided not to do it. It was much easier to say - I am just unlucky (a sociopath, too young, too old, too afraid, had a difficult childhood, this is not my thing, it won't work, I shouldn't go against my nature, I'm too busy - select all that apply).

My inner struggle at its peak, I stumbled upon this online project - or rather a game - titled 'Get out of your comfort zone. Now.' 'This is for me!' - I thought, and signed up for it immediately - before my mind embarked on overanalysing it and having any second thoughts..

I will keep posting about my progress here as the game unfolds. Stay tuned.

Acknowledgements: 'Getting out of your comfort zone' is a project led by Svetlana Pokrevskaya on her blog (in Russian). This post has been inspired by her articles.

Like what you're reading? Please share it with the world using the buttons below!

You are what you believe you are, and then do what you’re led to do, “your calling,”and if you aren't doing it, that’s when you fail, never when you’re actually doing it. No work of art is ever going to be as great or the same as all others, or as bad either. But if you aren't reaching for it at all, when you let someone or the whole of humanity steal that dream of your work, block your vision, hold you back even a little from what’s been given to you at birth, and likely long before, that’s when you've failed miserably.

Ironically, when you’re following your dreams and giving everything you have to them, there is no failure, there is no defeat, there is merely a journey to manifest something deep inside you, often hidden in your subconscious. The degree to which you fulfill your dreams is up to you, to how hard you’re willing to work at them, to how fiercely you’re willing to focus on them. But the first thing you must do is never let anyone steal them from you. You must have iron rhino skin and a determination as impregnable as Fort Knox. And then you won’t be daunted by anything or anybody.